(A collection of men’s thoughts on their women.)

• … she has an uncanny way of standing between me and the television screen. Bases loaded, two strikes, three balls. The crowd goes wild, the pitch flies, and all I can see is her butt.
  –Howard, Dodge City, Kan.
• … she was furious when I got up early once and made her breakfast. Called me controlling. How dare I decide that she would eat breakfast, let alone what she’d have?
  –Ted, Wexford, Pa.
• … what’s mine is hers. I buy her negligees; she sleeps in my T-shirts. When she’s cold she wears my wool socks to bed, never her own. She steals my half-used razors; new ones are too sharp. She even wears my boxers. I’m tempted to switch to briefs just to see what she’d do.
  –Dave, Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
• … she makes lists. Things to buy. Things to do. People to call. If it’s not on the list, it doesn’t get done. Once, to be funny, I put “sex” on the list. Mistake. Now it has to be on the list, or it doesn’t get done.
  –Nick, Wheeling, W.Va.
• … you can hear her eat soup from the next room.
  –Bruce, Bridgewater, N.J.
• … when she gets an idea in her head, there’s no stopping her. And no rest for anyone until it’s done. It’s not so bad when the idea is to bake cookies, or even to go on vacation. But when it’s to build a new house, or to get pregnant, things get pretty intense.
  –Jim, Minneapolis
• … my wife thinks everyone should be a vegetarian. During meals, she asks people how they can eat dead cows, or if they know that their pork chops used to be smarter than their dogs.
  –Miles, Shreveport, La.
• … every so often boom! she’s a brunette. Or I come home to a redhead. Actually, I have no idea what her natural color is.
  –Cary, Seattle
• … she’ll brush her teeth but she won’t go to the dentist. She says she’s not afraid of the pain, she just doesn’t want to put herself in the hands of any fellow who’d choose to be a dentist.
  –Terence, Gary, Ind.
• … she’s stopped shaving her legs. She says that now people will know she’s a natural blonde.
  –Ned, Tucson, Ariz.
• … she takes her half of the bed out of the middle.
  -Robin, Gladwyne, Pa.
• … have you ever seen a woman with green crust and slime smeared over her face, dark holes for her nostrils? Do you think you’d be able to sleep at night, knowing that creature is next to you?
  –Arthur, Cedar City, Utah
• … my wife’s allergic to everything. Her nose is chronically stuffed. If I kissed her on the mouth, she’d suffocate.
  –Bryan, Toledo, Ohio
• … after sex, I mean the second after, she continues where she left off. Her eyes open and before you can breathe, you hear, ” … and, oh, yeah, I have to defrost the chicken, and your mother wants you to pick up her dry cleaning …”
  –Jimmy, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
• … in bed I’m her high school teacher, captain of the football team, her boss, the bad boy, a waiter, a lifeguard, a telephone repairman, a cop. Once in a while I’d like to be me.
  –Neil, Orlando, Fla.
• … she wears these false eyelashes. She left ’em lying around and I slammed ’em with my newspaper, tried to kill the damn things. Scared me half to death.
  –Gordon, Oklahoma City, Okla.
• … she takes those soaps too seriously. I’ll come home and find her in tears because some character died. Or upset that some nonexistent guy’s having a fictional affair.
  –Archie, St. Louis
• … she will not shop at discount stores or sales. She thinks they’re crowded and plebeian. She doesn’t even look at the reduced rack, other than, perhaps, for gifts for my mother.
  –Conrad, Wilmington, Del.
• … it annoys her that our children look like me.
  –James, New Orleans
• … counting my wife and our teenage girls, that’s four women. Somebody’s always got PMS.
  –Everett, Little Rock, Ark.
• … with five kids, I don’t have time to complain about my wife. I don’t have time to notice her.
  –Bob, Charleston, W.Va.